Forum posts

Where'd we land on a Half-Life resource pack?

Assuming you’re triggering the func_rotate, consider just having it start on (but not rendered) and don’t trigger it. Unless you have more advanced ideas in mind, you could just have it always on and just make it visible and invisible as needed.

Super Mario Maker 2 came out recently, as you probably know. The creative bunch that we are, I'm sure some of us have picked it up and been making some levels! If you have, why not share them here? (Remember that when checking out a level, you can go to the creator's profile and follow them to find their stuff easier!)

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So far, I've made two levels. The first: The second:

Yeah, if someone really wants to replicate your stuff, they'll do it one way or another. Generally people don't, though, so I wouldn't worry about it that much. Heck, I'm for including .vmfs.

No, you don't want the flags checked, you want to have the properties that the second env_render copies over to be the properties that the func_rotating has before it gets triggered by the first env_render.

As for the sound, are you sure there's nothing triggering it again when it shouldn't be?

Are you able to provide the map, or at least of the section you're having this trouble with? Might make it easier to figure out what's going on.

Yeah, I’m not sure what this question is. All I can think of is you’re trying to make the npc itself trigger something via the Trigger Condition attribute? But then, you’d know that.

To make those blocks disappear after collecting them, yes, I'd make them a func_wall_toggle and trigger them along with the wall blocks. A multi_manager would help with that, as well as for adding sounds.
If your walls are entirely made of entities, then yes, you will have to have a non-entity brush sealing them off from the void. I'd keep that brush up against the walls (that is, don't just drag a big ol' box around everything) so that you're not wasting any resources.

For what you seem to be going for, what you've got going at the moment is probably the ideal way to do it. However, when the walls are made up of so many separate brushes, you might run into framerate issues. I'm not really knowledgeable about how much you can cram into goldsrc before you start running into that on modern computers, but if you enter r_speeds 1 and developer 1, you'll see that even in that small, rectangular room, you're hitting over 2000 wpolys (which is quite a lot). If, when you're building your map proper, you start to run into poor framerate, you'll probably have to make some changes. I'd definitely put the null texture on any faces you can't see if you're not doing that already, since that will help ensure the engine isn't trying to render things it can't see.
If that isn't enough, you could make your blocks bigger, or design the levels such that areas you aren't looking at as much are made of a neutrally coloured block texture that doesn't have to change (and thus are not made up of small blocks). Exactly what you do is up to you, and with luck, it won't be a problem either way.

As for things that happen on a round reset, I can't help much there, as I don't map for CS. You're definitely not the first person to have that kind of trouble though, so maybe try searching the site. I'm sure that info is on here somewhere.

I imagine the method I suggested and the one TMC suggested are pretty much the same thing done in different ways (though I'd use TMC's).
I'm, uh, curious about the 5000 blocks thing you mentioned though. That sounds... impractical. Could you detail exactly what you're trying to do there?

The Mad Carrot said:I think the tutorial Jessie posted is the old way of doing switchable texture lights. Nowadays, with Vluzacn's Half-Life Tools, you can get a better result when you use the light_surface entity.

Oh, cool, I didn't know about this! That sounds much simpler and more flexible.

Making texture lights toggleable is a bit more complex, but quite doable. Check out this example map.The "style" attribute of the func_wall lights is important, as is having a matching light entity.
There might be a more specific tutorial or forum thread somewhere on TWHL. If you're having trouble with it, try using the search to find more info.

As far as I recall, only func_pushables have that kind of gravity. If that's supposed to be a breakable on top of another breakable, you could have both break at the same time. Your options are pretty limited if you don't want them to be pushable.

Well, you could make the grey cube a func_wall_toggle as well, one that starts visible. If you trigger it at the same time as the red cube, it'll give the appearance of the cube changing.
To trigger it at the same time, you can give the grey cube the same name as the red cube. When you enter your trigger_once, it'll target everything with that name.
Alternatively, if you wanted finer control, or to add other effects or so on, you could use a multi_manager. That would let you target the cubes individually at set times, along with other sound effects and sprites or whatever else you might like to spice the effect up (if you wanted those). You can check out Tutorial: Multi_Manager for info on how to use that.

There's lots of ways to trigger entities in the way you're looking to do it. For this, I'd probably use either a func_button or a trigger_once.
func_button is, well, a button, which you press with the 'use' key ingame to have it trigger something. trigger_once is a zone which triggers something when you enter it (the zone is invisible). Both entities have a "Target" attribute, which should have the name of the func_wall_toggle in.

There's more detailed tutorials on this very site if you need to know more about the basics of working with entities.

Yeah, I think that they're both valid. Doesn't seem like there's much reason to go all in on one over the other. Keep it fresh, mix it up. Have some collaborations, and throw mini-competitions in the gaps to keep the maps flowing.

Ultimately, if you're looking to helm them, it's up to you. No-one's gonna demand anything of you that you don't wanna do.

I assume that's what they're talking about.

It's always bothered me.

Note that you will need to use path_track with a func_tracktrain rather than path_corner.

Yup, as above. The lighting of the func_train (and everything else) is calculated when the map is compiled, and the train moving around other parts of the map will not change it. Similarly, if you were to put a texture light onto the train, it would only use that light where the train is upon compile.

Goldsrc doesn't do much in the way of dynamic lighting, so it's best try to build your maps in such a way that it isn't too noticeable.

I suppose I'll play through these entries at the start of my next stream, again! Looking forward to checking them out!

Also looking forward to me getting off my ass and actually creating a submission myself sometime!

I felt like it was high time to follow up on that one Top 5s thread and that other Top 5s thread! We'll keep it a little more freeform this time, because there was always not enough to fill a top 5, or far too much to cram into one! Basically this is just a place to shout out whatever you want in a category.

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We'll kick off with Top Video Game Weapons! What weapons do you like to use in a game, and why? I intend to come back to this because I didn't want to spend hours reaping gifs of every weapon I like, but here's a couple to get us started.

Yup, pretty much. There's no way to actively move, enable or disable a ladder (save for removing the entity entirely via killtarget) (in vanilla Half-Life). As folks above suggested, the only real way to "turn on" a ladder is to cover the ladder in some way with something that can be removed (which is an issue if you need to move through that space). func_wall_toggle is good for that, func_door can also work.

Your best bet would be to find some way to justify not being able to move through where the ladder "appears".

You'd probably run into the fact that you'll probably never see the protagonists. Not to say they couldn't reappear, just that you'd need to make it clear who they were through dialogue. Which in turn may seem out of place if there aren't NPC's that are as prominent... I'm sure Urby can work all this out though!

... Are you making a Heat Signature mod

... Because you should.

Looks neat. I wonder how it differs from C&B?

Hey, I thought part of the point of these compos to get more singleplayer mapping going. Is that not a requirement for this compo?

I mean, yes, hence the specific call-out.

May we all have the courage to start early and the wisdom to not bite off more than we can chew in a month 😄

Cadence of Hyrule??

Though with only 3 entries, that won't take too long. Right?

I enjoyed checking them all out! I hope these things keep on coming so's I can do this more often.

Was going to hop in for a while, but it's just crashing when I try to join and I really can't be bothered figuring out why nowabouts.

Yeah, that's probably it.

It's possible there's an automatic recording on Twitch, but I'm working on getting the YouTube archive up as we speak anyway, so I could just link that once it's up if you wish.

Will it have more women in it than Half-Life does

That's not a high bar

Could you link some of the HL2 mods you've already made, out of curiosity?

I'm going to check out the submissions at the start of my stream tomorrow, quite possibly with a guest! If you can't be assed checking out the submissions yourself, tune in and let us do it for you! (Don't forget to vote though!)

There was only one mod I ever really considered making. Basic concept was that your could pick to play either as a scientist, security guard, HECU or vortigaunt. I'll note that the mod didn't really get any further than thinking up that concept. I was going to link the forum post I made for it, but there's really nothing worth seeing in there except embarrassment.

Everything I've seen from Chisels & Bits seems like it's a really nice design mod to have if you have the mind for it (even if half of what I've seen of it is Faxanadu sprites). Do I have the mind for it? Ehhhh~

I feel like that’d be a fine map concept to create, but the increased workload could be trouble for most. It’d almost make a good collaborative piece, with different people making different optional areas.

The strikethrough formatting button doesn't put the correct marks in. It places dashes, not tildes.

I'm increasingly feeling like my concept lives and dies by the quality of the details, and that I super don't have the time this week to actually put those details in or critically think about how to design them. Very helpful also is the fact that this week I will be working double the number of shifts I normally have!
So, uh, I think I'd prefer to hang onto my concept for now. Unless I come up with something else that is marvelously small in scope in the next few days, I guess I fucked up have to bow out.

Every time I think "I should keep mapping" I go do something else.
So, poorly.

I want this format to live, and I know that breaking through these mapping lulls is the way to do it, but man! The resistance is strong.

I've never been great at the whole willpower thing.

I'm trying my best not to linger on details and to try and get a working skeleton of my map(s) before I pretty them up. Y'know, after I've successfully opened Sledge, which is usually a whole separate challenge.

Very early days yet, but here's some proof that I'm doing something.

See https://twhl.info/thread/view/19667?page=1#post-341598

(I lost the file a while ago, unfortunately.)

(Not that it was likely to be very good, IIRC.)

Time to see if I can muster up the motivation to reboot and retrofit the idea I had for your descending thing.

What if maps had some kind of edit history like wiki pages do? Not so much for actually retrieving older versions, but just as a place to note when edits were made and what they consisted of. I guess I actually mean an update log. P'raps with the most recent update visible on the map's page.

It just seems a little clumsy to incorporate edit information into the map's description, if it's done at all. People can make an edit worthy of being bumped right into the main page of the site without any indication of what that edit was. I don't really know a good solution to that.